He shall lift us up

Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Do we draw nigh to God, do we? How are we to draw close to God? Sometimes it seems as if He's completely out of reach, doesn't it? Sometimes it seems as if He's so far away we could never hope to get near to God. We have to approach Him though. We have to seek God. We have to pray, in prayer we are drawing close to God aren't we? We are talking to God and if we are talking to God we are seeking to be in His presence aren't we? We wouldn't be talking to someone if we weren't seeking a closeness, right? When we call someone on the phone, even if they live 3000 miles away we are seeking to make contact with them, we are seeking to get closer to that person mentally, emotionally even if not physically. We have to seek to draw closer to God, to approach God.

We need to cleanse our hands.
We need to purify our hearts.

We are sinners, we are double minded- we want the world and we want God. We have to seek cleansing, we have to seek purifying and we can find this only through Christ and HIS righteousness, only through bowing at the feet of our Savior and begging His forgiveness.

We have to be afflicted.
We have to mourn.
We have to weep.

Why? Because only through recognizing our despondent state can we truly recognize our need of a Savior.

We must humble ourselves before God, we MUST realize our humble state, our need of God. God cannot lift up those who do not recognize they need lifting up.

So even while we are counting our trials joy, we are afflicted with the knowledge we are sinful, we are mourning with the knowledge we are unworthy, we are to weep knowing that we are filthy with the sins we've committed. We might laugh but our laughter is temporary when we understand our vile state. Any joy we have is to turn to heaviness because we know how far our sins separate us from God. Yes, we HAVE to humble ourselves before God so HE can lift us up. We cannot be lifted up by God until we realize are need before Him knowing we cannot lift ourselves up, we have no power to lift ourselves up. God will lift us up though, He will if we seek Him and seek to understand our place before Him as His creatures.

Please Lord help us to submit to You, to seek You, to humble ourselves before You and only YOU!

Please Lord we need you so desperately, so very desperately.

By the grace of God always!

In Your love!

Amen.